The purpose of the African Women in Cinema Blog is to provide a space to discuss diverse topics relating to African women in cinema--filmmakers, actors, producers, and all film professionals. The blog is a public forum of the Centre for the Study and Research of African Women in Cinema.

FESPACO is honoured to announce to cinema and audio-visual professionals that the call of entries is open for the selection of films for the 26th edition, to take place from 23 February to 2 March 2019.

The journeys of on-screen characters, while most do not reflect the off-screen trajectories of the real-life women, some do provide glimpses that parallel the paths that these women have voyaged in their own lives, perhaps influenced by their characters, or more brutally, because of them. Their travels, imaginary and real, had some relationship to their roles as actor and/or the choices they later made as a result of their encounter with/within the world of cinema. It is their on-screen legacy, especially in the case of iconic films, that has been the most enduring; as these women, far removed from their fame in these early films, live quiet off-screen lives a long way from the experiences of their cinematic characters.

Moreover, the filmmakers, who navigate frontiers, negotiate relocations and displacements to extra-African environments, inscribe an autobiographical journeying, problematizing these itinerant identities in their films. Likewise, traveling, sojourning and relocating across the globe involve shifting or ultimately expanding the identity of their cinema. Hence, an exploration of on-screen representations offer a larger picture of their experiences in front of and behind the camera.

22 May 2018

Women’s presence at the African Film Festival New York is visible in all categories with many of the film practitioners in attendance for discussion at the screenings. At the helm of the Festival is Sierra Leonean Mahen Bonetti, founder and director. Some of the highlights at the 2018 edition are Apolline Traoré's opening film Borders; the 2017 version of Selbe: One Among Many, by Safi Faye, reissued in Wolof, originally released in 1983; French-Burkinabé curator Claire Diao’s traveling series “Quartiers Lointains”; Ekwa Msangi’s Master Class, during which she explores building a sustainable career as a filmmaker. This year’s festival, which celebrates its 25th year, runs from 16-22 May to 10 June with screenings and other relevant cultural events in various venues.

In focusing on the daily life of a Senegalese village woman, Selbe: One Among Many examines the economic and social roles rural African women are expected to play. Selbe has the heavy responsibility of providing for a large family as her husband searches unsuccessfully for work in a neighboring town. On his return, he joins the other unemployed men of the village, who will not help the women, but are as dependent on them as the children for food and shelter.

This reissue marks the first time the film has been issued in its original Wolof language. U.S. Premiere of reissue in Wolof. In the presence of Safi Faye.

The Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival & Lecture Series is a two-day annual film festival founded by African Voices magazine and Long Island University's Media Arts Dept., Brooklyn Campus. Established in 1997, Reel Sisters (www.reelsisters.org) is dedicated to providing opportunities for women of color filmmakers to advance their careers in the film industry. Reel Sisters is the first Brooklyn-based film festival to showcase films directed, produced and written by women of color. Gender non-conforming filmmakers are welcomed to submit women centered films to the festival.

Sofia, the first feature film by Franco-Moroccan Meryem Benm'Barek screened on 16 May 2018 at Un Certain Regard, is a social drama set in a society holding on to backward beliefs. The young filmmaker delivers a polished work presenting a superb portrait of a woman, brilliantly performed by Maha Alemi.

Sofia (Maha Alemi) is a clever 20-year-old who discovers that she is pregnant and is about to give birth. In Morocco, to have a child outside of marriage is a crime. Hence, assisted by her cousin Lena (Sarah Pearls), the young woman has a few hours to find the father of her child, a certain Omar (Hamza Khafif).

Sofia is clearly not very expressive. In addition, she is almost scolded for not being more expansive when she drags her entire family into this "experiment", considered particularly humiliating in Moroccan society.

Especially when her cousin Lena, who comes to her rescue from the very start of the drama, asks her to light her lantern. Though Sofia has problems, it does not automatically elicit empathy. And one of Meryem Benm'Barek's remarkable magic tricks is to make her, scene by scene, a woman who ends up commanding respect and admiration.

Sofia’s main charcter is a heroine in a world of women, as her mother, aunt and cousin are the main protagonists. On the other hand, the men (Sofia's father and the father of her child), contrary to appearances, are accessories, even if they can also cause irreparable harm.

Sofia's stoicism is the most visible facet of her heroism. Her denial that she is pregnant, the rejection and anger of her parents, her new motherhood, all are hardships that she seems to traverse with indifference. Her face, filmed in close-up, is almost always impassive. But when she does smiles, it is to show, and perhaps especially to affirm, that despite the circumstances, she remains in control of her destiny. Particularly in a society that oppresses women and leaves them, as a result, little or no room for maneuver. A lesson in feminism, without fanfare.

Meryem Benm'Barek created a scenario of exceptional finesse and intelligence. And she was able as well, to transform it into images with the same qualities. Maha Alemi, who carries the film, is also a wonderful discovery. This perfectly-mastered first work, is again, proof of the vitality of Moroccan cinema.

17 May 2018

Safi Faye returns to Cannes with Fad,Jal, restored by the CNC, presented at Cannes Classics. The film was first screened at Cannes in 1979 at Un Certain Regard. Also selected at Cannes at Un Certain Regard 1996, was her film Mossane.

Fad,Jal is a Serere Senegalese village. At school, children learn, in French, the grammar and history of France. Villagers practice their religion in a church, a vestige of colonialism.

At the foot of a tree, the ancestor and a griot recount to the children in Wolof, the history of the village—its customs, its tradition, its creation. An opportunity to discover the artisanal trades, agricultural techniques and the difficulty of exploiting the land because of the drought. Meanwhile, as a result of the recently-implemented government policy, the Serere are confronted on a daily basis with the appropriation of their land, previously transmitted by oral agreement among the villagers.